"Huh. Surprised you didn't know that."*

If you've got a Facebook page or a MySpace account, you've encountered the meme floating out there on the interwebs that asks you to catalog 25 things about yourself that people may not know.  I wasn't going to resort to this, but I see that a few other bloggers have already done it, so I figured eh... what the hell.  Problem is, I'm a) a little strapped for time, 2) wary of boring the handful of readers I have and d) lazy,** so I'm only going to list half of them today. 

Without further ado... all kinds of crap about me!

1.  I am totally a city girl.  I love the charm of small towns; I went to college in one and I can't imagine having had it any other way... but I love the bustle and noise and crowds of a big city.  It's what keeps me from getting too homesick, now that I live in my fair state's capital.  I love driving out of the city, seeing the skyline in my rearview mirror and being able to pick out the individual buildings.

2.  As much as I love the 'bus, though, I love my 'Rowdy hometown.  No, I mean, I love it.  It is frequently misrepresented and misunderstood, but then again, most great things are.  You just need the right tour guide to get a true sense of the place.  Are you a Cleveland Cavs fan... or a basketball fan in general... or alive at all?  You may have heard of a guy named LeBron James.  Yeah:  dude went to high school four miles down the street from me.  Are those Goodyear tires on your car?  Hello, WORLD HEADQUARTERS.  It was a terrific place to grow up and I'm proud to come from there.

3.  One of the most refreshing things about moving here has been the fact that I'm starting with a clean slate.  I have friends here, and of course J's here, but other than that, very few people know my backstory... with the result that I have the remarkable opportunity to start fresh in my 30s.

4. J and I have known each other for just about our entire lives. His mom's family lived down the street from my dad's family when they were little; his dad and my uncle have been BFFs since grade school. It took us three decades to get together as a couple, though, and it was 100% worth the wait. On our first date, we were all chatty and catch-uppy, and when I got up to go to the ladies' room, the bartender smiled at J and said "so, second date's going well, huh?"  So cute.

5.  My sister and I are incapable of having a conversation without using lines of movie dialogue.  It's a sickness, really, but it's hilarious. 

6.  Speaking of her, I just recently (like, this week), admitted that I'm getting old, when I made a couple references to some old cartoons and she had no memory of them whatsoever.  I mean, sure, it was old when I saw it for the first time, but GOD, please tell me someone else out there has seen and/or remembers this!

7.  And speaking of old, I'm also the oldest grandchild on both sides of our family.  I got to do everything first until I was 24, when one of the cousins got married.  Others soon followed suit, and now I love that I'm one of the last holdouts!

8.  Red is my favorite color to wear.  I think it's partially due to my loyalty to Miami, but it's also because it takes balls to wear and the effect on people is terrific.  It could be a dress, shoes, lipstick... people want to be around a woman in red.

9.  I want Rachel McAdams to play me in the movie about my life.  She's got the name thing down and she.  Is.  Darling.

Cute much?!

10.  Given that I've worked for three universities, and that I've enjoyed those three jobs more than anything else I've done with my career, I have no choice but to concede to my mom's long-held opinion that I'm an educator at heart and I belong in this field.  I'm not about to make crazy money, but I need a cause, not just a job. 

11.   One of my favorite things to do with J and our friends is game night.  Apples to Apples, UNO, The Game of Things, whatever... it's like being a kid, but with beer this time!

12.  I have a ridiculous gift for remembering names.  It was a huge advantage when I was a recruiter; I'd meet a student once and then be able to address them by name four months later.  It got to be a running joke in the office and my colleagues started calling me Rain Man (except, you know, in a nice way).

13.  I love dogs, and cats are a close second, but the way I see it?  If I'm going to put that kind of time and energy and attention and cash into another living creature, it's going to be a kid.  It's one of the first things J and I agreed on:  we like impromptu happy hour and sleeping in wayyyyyyy more than we like picking up poop that's not our own. 

That's enough for now!  A future post will have the other half of the list. 



*Tommy Callahan (Chris Farley), Tommy Boy
**"A..., 2..., and D..." is from Home Alone***

***See?!

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I left my coat at home for the first time today!  And drove with the windows down!

It can only mean one thing:  spring is really here.  Sure, Ohio's been known to get a snowstorm in April, so we're not totally out of the woods yet, but it's hard to care when the clock-thermometer at the bank says 60 degrees in March.

I love the sunshine, the smell in the air, the buds on the trees and flowers... but what I love most is that spring kicks off my absolute favorite season.

It's Festival Season, kids!

One of the stereotypes of Midwestern living is that we'll celebrate anything with a festival.  My hometown and the surrounding area alone are host to a ton of fun weekends, with "guests of honor" that include (but of course, are not limited to):

Cherry Blossoms

Kite and Flight

Hamburgers (Akron claims to be is the birthplace of the burger!)

...and of course, the rib burn-offs and ethnic festivals that almost every city hosts.  Watch the Irish dance troupes one weekend, scarf up homemade cannoli the next, take a week off and then come back to mariachi bands and taco trucks! 

And oh, God, the people-watching.  Unbelievable.  These celebrations are the great equalizer of humanity.  Where on earth are you going to a toothless trailer park family rubbing elbows with a Fortune 500 exec?  In the line for a funnel cake, that's where. 

My new town played host to the annual spectacle that is The Arnold Sports Festival this past weekend.  It's the largest annual multi-sport event nationwide, and MAN, is it gross.  Congratulations to the winners... now please go away.

Start planning your summers!

Like high school English, but with more drinking and less reading.

Okay, so:  Book Club.

I do a lot of cool things, but BC is by far one of my favorites.  Easily in the Top 5.  It started out innocently enough, when my awesome friend A back in the hometown got tired of waiting months and months between girls' nights out.  She had always wanted to be in a book club, so she figured she'd start one herself, cajole some girlfriends into "joining" and see where it took them.

Problem is, we're all busy chicks.  Jobs and boyfriends and husbands and kids and tons of other demands on our time... who the hell has time to read?

So A compromised and said all right, we'll just read the trashy celebrity gossip rags.  It's stuff we'd be reading anyway, she thought; why don't we trade the magazines around and boom, now I've just saved you all about ten bucks in grocery store checkout line.

That was August of 2008.  I think we stuck to the original "format" once.

After that, it just sort of evolved into the awesomeness that it is today.  We meet once a month (usually on the third Thursday, but we're flexible) and a different girl hosts each time.  It's been as simple as drinks and dinner, but we've also done Saturday morning brunch (with an intense Bloody Mary bar) and sex toy parties and purse parties and trips to the winery and all kinds of fun stuff.

One of our best moments was "Book Club Gives Back" in November:  we gathered up enough stuff to make two dozen "care packages" for the Battered Women's Shelter, with toiletries and some pampering items, and some packages for their children as well.  A has a 16-month-old daughter, Little C, and she suggested adding the kids to the project because "as a mom, [she] couldn't imagine not being able to give [them] a Christmas."  (A is about to be honored as Volunteer of the Year through an organization she helps; easy to see why, huh?)

The December meeting is everyone's favorite.  We pack ourselves into a couple cars and take a Christmas shopping road trip, complete with slumber party in a hotel suite, pedicures and cupcakes and a LOT of champagne.

The dynamic nature is what makes it so cool.  There are a handful of "regulars" who never miss a month, but you can always bring new girls with you - they're only newbies for about half an hour anyway!

What's more important is the fact that we commit to getting together once a month, no matter what.  It's easy to say "I'm busy, I'm tired, I have too much else going on," and we'll grant you a pass when you really need one.  The truth is, though, we need each other just as much as we need the boyfriends/husbands/kids/jobs/etc.  Sometimes the only thing that will keep you off the ledge is a bottle of red (each) and a fantastic session of venting and giggling!

Then why even call it a book club?

Ahhh, the name is one of the key elements!  Because this way, we can talk about it in front of the guys or in front of our non-cool coworkers and acquaintances and they say "yeeuuuughhhhh, no thanks, have fun with that one." 

Oh, and because it gives us justification for drinking in the morning (I love you, brunch!). 

When I moved, I knew I'd miss my little group more than I could tell them... so I've started an annex here.  Our second meeting is next week; I'm sure the Columbus chapter will be featured here more often as time goes by!

Why Rachel should seek help: Exhibit C.

"Well, the end table is wrong, the couch looks bizarre and don't even get me started on the refrigerator magnets."

"If I want something done right, I have to do it myself.  Other people just wreck stuff! ...I really think I might kill someone tonight."

 - Courteney Cox as Monica Geller, Friends, "The One Where Phoebe Runs"

So, the move this weekend.  

First of all, I'm going on record to say that I will never, ever again attempt to move on my own.  The movers met me at the condo at 8:30 Saturday morning, gratefully accepted the proffered Krispy Kremes, loaded up all my furniture and hit the road.

A brief 90 minutes later, I was signing the "job complete" contract and sending them along their merry way.  You can't put a price on that kind of speed.

But lifting and hauling a king-size bed, dressers and a full living room set?  That was the easy part compared to what lies before me now.

Dude:  I HATE moving.  I'm seriously contemplating burning all my stuff and just buying new the next time I have to uproot myself.  It would be a lot more expensive, for sure, but what I'd spend on kitchen items and linens would save me a bundle in OTC sedatives.

The boxes are beating me.  

I had to put myself in time-out on Saturday afternoon for a nap, after the project of reattaching feet to the couch almost had me in tears.  J sweetly suggested that I wait for him to help me but NO I CAN DO IT MYSELF AND I WANT IT DONE NOW AND I JUST... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
 

I love you, naptime.

I'm sure you can tell that I'm exaggerating just a tiny bit.  The nap did wonders for my morale; I only had to rearrange the living room four times to get it exactly the way I want it, and now that I'm almost completely settled in, the place is starting to look and feel like home.  Which was really the whole idea to begin with, so... point Cbus. 

Well played.

Rach on the move

It's finally upon us (well, me):  the movers are coming tomorrow.  There is snow in the forecast, but not until Sunday night, so I'm go for launch to have all my shit under one roof again. 

FINALLY.

After driving a 14-foot U-Haul truck up and down I-71 in the snow on New Year's weekend, there was no way in hell I was going to put myself (and J, and my friends) through that again.  Not this soon, anyway.  I like J and I want him to keep liking me.  Ditto my friends, who were sweet enough to help me load and unload, with only a few beers and some wings and ribs for payment.  

 

Just kidding J, I love you AND your video games.

All the manageable boxes are accounted for; I've been moving a bit at a time for the last ten days so the kitchen is complete and my closet is neatly organized (with clothes hanging first in category and then in color order).  I just don't have the physical strength to move a king bed, a dresser and cedar chest, and my entire living room set on my own... to say nothing of the emotional fortitude it would require.  The last effort?  Nearly broke my spirit.

But not a moment too soon, since next week I'm hosting the February meeting of my book club!

...which is a whole new post in itself.  Cliffhanger!  Stay warm this weekend, kids; cross your fingers for another snow day for me on Monday so I can stay home, unpack and get to that spring cleaning!

 

Board game FAIL.

Eat it, winter.

The university closed early again today.  I got sent home at 2... and I pulled into the parking lot at J's place at 4.  

They're 15 miles apart.

Much like the rest of the Midwest and the Eastern seaboard, our fair state's capital has been getting hosed with snow this year.  My life is about one log cabin and a pot of beans away from turning into Little House on the Freakin' Prairie.  (Book six, The Long Winter, is my second favorite in the series, but damn it, I don't want to BE Laura Ingalls!)

This chapter in our snow story may be the worst yet this winter, but the silver lining is that it might lead to a snow day tomorrow.  They told us to wrap up our Monday itineraries before we left... and to reschedule any Tuesday meetings or appointments... you know, just in case.  

Well, hell.  Don't dangle a carrot like that unless you mean it!

With the prospect of a snow day looming, I have to confess that the two hour drive home was complicated by a stop at the only Whole Foods in Columbus.  In my defense, though, it's walking distance from J's place, and if this keeps up and we get snowed in, we're going to need supplies!  

I went into the store, and it was snowing.  

I came out 20 minutes later (and X dollars poorer), had to scrape ice off my windows, and it was snowing.

J and I sat down to watch a marathon of Pawn Stars on The History Channel almost three hours ago, fortified with adult beverages and some bacon-cheese popcorn, and it was snowing.  

A pot of my awesome "patate del paesano" has been simmering for about two episodes.  The house smells incredible, J just poured me a second glass of shiraz... and it's still snowing.

Fingers crossed!  I'm going to invoke the third-grade prescription for getting a snow day tonight:  flushing ice cubes down the toilet and wearing my jammies backwards.  Stay tuned to see if it works!

Give it a rest, Rach.

I got another snow day today!  The university held out till 3:00, but the roads were getting worse and the snow just kept falling, so The Powers That Be convened an emergency meeting and decided to let us all go home.

It wasn't really a surprise.  My 15-mile commute took 90 minutes this morning, and I was one of the ones who had it easy.

The point is, though, that my first thought wasn't "freebie long evening, ahhhhhh!"  It was "holy crap!  Two extra hours to get a ton of stuff done tonight!"

Commute forgotten, Level 1 Snow Emergency be damned, I'm going to get some moving and unpacking done!  Watch out, new apartment; you don't even know what's coming!  

And then J was my reality check.  

"Rach:  the roads are ten times worse than they were this morning.  The boxes will still be there this weekend."

What my car would have looked like if I had had to work a full day.

Hrmph.  That guy is right, like, all the time.  

So I left the office, picked up a bottle of Shiraz (for me), a six-pack of Conway's Irish Ale (for J and his brother who's visiting), a little pot of broccoli cheddar soup and a loaf of crusty bread... and I've been sitting on the couch since 4:37.

What's cool is that today goes right along with yesterday's entry.  I make lists, an average of two or three a day.  My day planner might as well be my bible.  It stands to reason, then, that sometimes I need a little help shutting off that part of my life and just... being.  I'm writing this from J's couch (because I haven't moved mine yet, duh!) in a sweatshirt and yoga pants; he just got up to pour me a second glass.  He and his brother S and I are plotting out the evening's TV selections and trying to decide between Xbox or PS3 in the meantime.

I know exactly what's going in the gratitude journal tonight.  

Drive me to drink, indeed.

So, there's a big ol' storm ragin'.  Specifically, central Ohio is expected to get 8-10 inches (...heh) of snow overnight, and a total closer to 14-18 inches (..heh, again) by lunchtime Sunday. 

I'm fine with it.  I'm from northeast Ohio, damn it:  the buckle of the Snow Belt!  We love this shit!  I went to Target the other night in a hoodie sweatshirt and a pair of running shorts and got that look from the other shoppers.  

Oh yeah, other shoppers?  It's 40 degrees out, not 15 below, and it's not currently snowing/sleeting/wintry-mixing (note to Sarah, "wintry mix" is proof that God wants to test humanity), and anyway it takes 92 seconds to walk from the car into the store, so relax. 

 

But it's not the shoppers that get under my skin.

It's the drivers.  

Or, as I am about to experience again, the drivers who live in perpetual fear of winter weather. 

For some illogical, unexplainable reason, the good people of Columbus, Ohio, just cannot seem to get their heads around winter driving.  We're stationed close to the center of a Midwestern state, and yet, judging by the reaction of 90% of the driving population in the area, you would think this was Key West.  

Hey, folks?  We do this every year.  That crazy white stuff you see falling from the sky is just really cold water.  You know what this month is?  That's right, February.  It's part of winter.  You may have heard of winter; it's the stretch of the year from around Halloween to Easter-ish (or Passover, for our token Jewish friends. Shalom).  You know how we're always touting Midwestern living, saying how we couldn't move anywhere else because we'd miss the change of all four seasons?  Yeah.  Winter is one of those.   

The silver lining to the impending city-wide freakout is that the university I work for has decided to close at 3 p.m.  T-minus 13 minutes to the weekend, y'all!

(I figure if we're going to act like this is the Deep South, I'm gonna play my southern family ties card and drop a y'all here and there.)

Now, THIS is worth a freakout of epic proportions.

Some girls have all the luck.

 

...and I'm not one bit sorry about it.

J is the boyfriend.  He's cute, if you like that "former college athlete-smarter than your Calc prof-takes you to chick flicks without rolling his eyes" type.

Which I DO.

We've been dating just this side of a year, and for the first 10 months we lived two hours apart.  Then, through the magic of new jobs and U-Haul trucks and an inhumane amount of packing tape, I moved to his fair city a month ago.

And it. Is. Awesome.

The best part about it is that I would have moved here even if not for J.  I love my hometown.  Northeast Ohio kicks ass and anyone who says otherwise never had ME for a tour guide.  But there's something... something about this city that just draws you in and makes you want to know everything about it.  I'd tried to move here twice before but never got the timing right:  I was looking for a paycheck, not a career, and I didn't know which were the "good" neighborhoods, and I only had one or two friends in the area.

Now?  I've landed a job that makes perfect sense in my life, both professionally and personally.  In two weeks I'm moving out of my temporary home at a friend's house and into a lovely little apartment (with my first ever walk-in closet! *SIGH*).

And my boyfriend, my best friend, is here too.  

Before, with more than a hundred miles between us, we had to actively plan out our dates.  Weekends were too short and it was An Occasion every time we got to see each other, since those times were always at least five days apart.


Now?  Weekends are still too short, but it's not as important because we don't have to cram a week's worth into them.  

"If I haven't said it before, she's a lucky, lucky lady."*


Friends, season 8 #15, "The One With the Birthing Video."**

**See?  Told you.